FIJI WATER REALLY COMES FROM FIJI... WHO KNEW

Bula everyone! Fiji is so wonderful. You guys wouldn't believe the people here. They are so sweet and laid back; America could definitely take some lessons from them. Here are some things I've noticed:
-Fiji Time. You know how we have mormon standard time? ie the meeting was supposed to start 15 minutes ago but the teacher is still in the foyer? We have NOTHING on Fiji time. I went to a training meeting yesterday at the hospital that was supposed to start at 9 and it didn't get going until 10:45! No one cares either! They just smile and say "sanga lenga" meaning "no worries!" We get cancelled on all the time and everyone just says "welcome to Fiji time!"
-Fijians share EVERYTHING. Food, clothes, whatever. We have to be careful not to complement people on their clothes because they'lll insist on giving them to us.
-Fijians take a lot of pride in being from Fiji. We're always asked "you like Fiji?" We always say yes, and that makes them smile and laugh
-Fijians are also very, very proud of having the Fiji Water Plant here. It's about an hour and a half away from where we're staying. We get asked a lot if we've visited the plant.
You guys would all love the people. They are amazing. I've started working on some pretty neat projects. There in an Indo-Fijian man I work with named Ravin. Ravin was born practically blind. A little more than a year ago his family raised money to send him to India to get his eyes fixed. Now that he can see, he wants to be able to read. He tried to go to the school but he is not to a level that they will accept so I meet with him three times a week to practice reading. He is so smart. He is learning really quickly and does everything we ask him to. I'm hoping to get him to a fourth grade reading level before we leave Fiji. Another project that is just taking off involved and MDA (mass drug administration) with the hospital. For the next two weeks we will be visiting many, many villages to admister pills to prevent elephantitis. We went to the training yesterday (where I found the real meaning of Fiji Time) and we start next week. Since we don't speak Fijian each of the volunteers will be paired with a Fijian nurse to bridge the language barrier. Most of Fijians I've come in to contact with speak at least broken english but the farther into the mountains we get fewer and fewer people speak english. I'm really excited about helping with that project. Yesterday I built my first Adobe stove. The people here cook on open fires in little shacks behind their homes. The fires are dangerous for many reasons: children can fall into the flames, smoke gets blown into the womens eyes and lungs, and it's a fire hazard. We teach them to build stoves out of resources they have (clay, banana tree, and sand). It was a lot of hard work but I felt really rewarded after seeing the finished project. The stove won't be ready for use for 4 weeks (it takes a REALLY long time to dry) but I know how grateful the people are just to have it.
There's a brief update for now! I'll post again next week!